Monday, October 24, 2011

Huff Post - Catholic Bishops Endanger Church Tax Exempt Status Over Death Penalty Advocacy

Well no I am fibbing a tad here. The Huff Post piece "Catholic Bishops Endanger Church Tax Exempt Status" deal with gay marriage

But is is amazing AGAIN how we see implied threats to the Church's tax exemption used and how selective it is. We don't see articles at the Huff Post for instance saying the Church is in danger of losing it's tax exempt status because it speaks out execution, illegal immigration issues, and economic programs for the poor. Again it is "I don't like the content of the speech so let's try to suppress it".

The piece is quite a mess in my view. This part caught my eye:



There's a reason the Vatican appointed the cigar-smoking, baseball-loving, borderline-charming Dolan to serve as shepherd of the Sodom and Gomorrah that is New York City. The passing of same-sex marriage rights legislation in his state and the reproductive health aspects of the new health care mandate present New York's top priest with fresh opportunity to make his mark as the defender of the faith in the U.S. On Sept. 30, Timothy Dolan, in his capacity of USCCB president, announced the formation of a sub-committee whose task will be to respond to the "erosion of freedom of religion in America": "...the new subcommittee would be one of several initiatives designed to strengthen the conference's response and bring together a broad cross-section of churches and legal scholars to oppose attacks on the First Amendment."
Dolan is fronting this crusade, and the degree of difficulty involved makes going out on a limb with a shaky "First Amendment" argument worth the gamble. He has appointed a Connecticut Bishop, William Lori, to head up the new committee. Unfortunately the first association many Catholics have with the "Diocese of Bridgeport" is its notorious status as
a locus of sexual abuse. (In 2001, the Diocese of Bridgeport settled in 23 civil sex abuse cases, and there, according to Bishop Accountability.org, Timothy Dolan's predecessor is alleged to have allowed priests facing multiple accusations to continue in ministry....

Hmm "shaky First Amendment" augment. I am not sure it's that shaky . Further as we saw just recently as to another Religious Liberty case there seem to be some "bipartisan" shock at the position of the Administration on the ministerial exception.

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